India, Pakistan and cricket: State of play and what could happen in Feb

If signals emerging from India-Pakistan meetings held on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Islamabad remain steady, India will travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy in February next year.

The last Indian team to cross the border for cricket was M S Dhoni’s side that played the Asia Cup in June-July 2008. So, if things were to ultimately work out, it would have taken 16 long years to untangle cricket from the complexities of India-Pakistan politics.

In the winter of thaw, a peace drill from an earlier era could play out again — doves could be released, gates long shut could open, Indian politicians could be seen in Pakistani stadiums, and taxi drivers in Lahore could refuse to take money from visitors from Delhi.

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India and Pakistan, then & now

Much water has flowed down the Indus over the last two decades. The countries and their cricket have changed beyond recognition. Indian cricket’s phenomenal rise has coincided with Pakistan’s dramatic decline. While Indian cricketers enjoy a cult following everywhere, the stock of Pakistani players has plummeted even at home.

Indian cricketers have always had fans in Pakistan, but now they are seen with awe. Disillusioned with their own team, Pakistanis unabashedly applaud India these days. The Champions Trophy could see an accurate calibration of the popularity of Indian cricketers in Pakistan, as also the depth of that country’s cricketing distress.

Pakistan have of late seen so many debacles across formats that it is tough to imagine which one hurts the most. They lost to Afghanistan in the ODI World Cup last year, and were humiliated by part-timers from the US at the T20 World Cup a few months ago. And they have lost 7 of their last 11 home Tests.

India, meanwhile, narrowly missed winning the 50-over World Cup before lifting the T20 World Cup. In red-ball cricket, they are near invincible at home, having lost just 4 Tests in 11 years.

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Game, players besieged

The collapse of Pakistan’s cricket can be blamed on a crippling administrative mess. The last four years have seen as many chairmen of the Pakistan Cricket Board, and 27 — yes, you read that right — selectors.

Such is the cynicism of fans that they heaved a collective sigh of relief after mega stars Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi were rested for the second Test of the ongoing series against England. Criticism of players often takes the form of toxic trolling and abuse. At a press conference recently, the Pak media manager had to remind reporters to be civil when addressing the captain.

It is perhaps symptomatic of the change in the country that once worshipped its cricketers that its greatest hero, the World Cup-winning Kaptaan Imran Khan, is today behind bars — languishing, as his ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith reported, alone in a dark, damp cell disconnected entirely from the outside world.

Virat, the new obsession

Pakistani fans long for that lost Imran era, their cricket’s golden age. They miss those gutsy men who would never give up — the cornered tigers who won the 1992 World Cup after the world had written them off. As if on rebound, many Pakistanis have fallen for the aggressive Punjabi boy next door — Virat Kohli reminds them of their yesteryear heroes, the Javed Miandads, Wasim Akrams, and Waqar Younises whom the world could not intimidate.

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Ajay Bisaria, who served as India’s last High Commissioner to Islamabad from 2017-19, recalls Imran, who was then Prime Minister, telling him that he rated Kohli higher than even the great Sachin Tendulkar. And Wasim Akram keeps advising Pakistan’s chronic underperformers to learn from Virat’s commitment to the game and his fitness.

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Indeed, Virat is expected to get a Beatles-scale welcome in Pakistan next year. In an interview with The Indian Express in June, former Pakistan captain Azhar Ali had said: “The day Virat plays in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi or in Multan, only then you guys will understand his craze in Pakistan… The stadium will be filled with green jerseys, but he will receive the same amount of support as Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi…” It would be a goosebumps moment for both nations, the most impactful of peace initiatives.

Cricketers, ambassadors

Cricketers have helped build bridges between the two sides earlier too.

Back in 1978, Bishan Singh Bedi had developed, by the end of the tour, a life-long friendship with General Zia ul Haq, Pakistan’s ruler at the time. Bedi read in a newspaper about a patient with a rare blood group who needed a transfusion urgently. The Indian captain had the same blood group, and he ended up donating blood. Zia got to know, and a bond was formed. When the General visited India, he sent out a message, “I want to meet the Sardar again.”

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In 2004, at tea with the players in the Prime Minister’s residence ahead of the Indian team’s departure for Pakistan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee handed captain Sourav Ganguly a bat with the message, “Khel hi nahin, dil bhi jeetiye (Win not just games, but hearts, too)”.

Of course, the burden of being ambassadors of the country and messengers of peace can be distracting for professional sportspersons. Kohli and Rohit Sharma would do well to remember Ganguly’s famous pep talk in the dressing room during the series-deciding one-dayer: “Dil toh theek hai, game jitna hai humko.”

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